


Vital

by whateverrrrwhatever



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Eddie Kaspbrak Lives, Eddie Kaspbrak Loves Richie Tozier, Late Night Conversations, M/M, Post-Canon, Pre-Relationship, Richie Tozier Loves Eddie Kaspbrak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 06:14:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,567
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24818956
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/whateverrrrwhatever/pseuds/whateverrrrwhatever
Summary: Eddie can't sleep.
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 6
Kudos: 56





	Vital

**Author's Note:**

> Still figuring out how to write these two and feedback is very welcome. This is a little bit of a blend of book and movie canon -- I took what I wanted and discarded the rest.

Eddie’s never been a sound sleeper. His brain doesn’t quiet easily, and when it finally does, he’s prone to waking at the slightest provocation: a murmur of noise, a shift in temperature, a nightmare, instantly forgotten.

He doesn’t rest any easier after It is dead, after he’s left Derry and returned to New York, after he’s left his wife and moved into a modern furnished apartment in the Battery.

One of the few memories he’d kept, between leaving Derry and coming back, had been of a fitful full moon night in his old bedroom. He remembers tossing and turning on hot sweaty sheets, unable to keep the moonglow from reaching through the blinds and twisting his thoughts into an anxious tangle that he spent hours unknotting, mind turning over and over like an engine unable to start. The cracks in the ceiling of the old house drifted in and out of relief as sleep approached and quickly receded, until the moon set and the glow from the window was overtaken by the lightening sky.

Tonight feels the same. The ceiling of his apartment is smooth, and Eddie has nowhere to focus. It’s different, he reminds himself -- he’s older, and he can do what he wants. There’s no one stopping him from leaving his bed, from leaving his apartment, from walking to the pharmacy, from taking a pill, or--

“Sorry,” Eddie says. “For calling so late at night… well.” He huffs out a laugh. “Early in the morning. But…”

He trails off, and presses the heel of his palm to his forehead. It’s supposed to relieve tension, he read somewhere. All it does is make the silence ring in his ears.

“It’s okay, Eds,” Richie says finally. “It’s earlier here anyway.”

“Not that much.”

“Yeah, well.” He hears rustling over the line, like Richie’s shifting. Eddie imagines him stretched out on the couch, or maybe his bed, legs crossed at the ankles, staring at the ceiling as he talks. Like he used to. “You know me. I’m a night owl.” It’s not a lie. 

“Yeah,” Eddie manages. “You always were.”

“But not you. Lights out at nine thirty. You were always the first to fall asleep when we slept over.”

“Sleep hygiene is important, asshole.”

“All right,” Richie laughs drily. “So what the fuck are you doing up at 4 a.m.?”

Eddie shivers. It’s cold in the living room of his tiny apartment, in the middle of winter, the lights of downtown Manhattan blinking pale and sharp between the blinds. He left all the blankets in the bedroom.

He doesn’t know why he called Richie when the night started to shade into morning and he still, still couldn’t sleep. The sheets and blankets a knotted pile on top of him, tucked between his knees, hundreds of configurations of flannel and wool and his aching limbs, none of which allowed him rest. He took melatonin. A glass of warm milk. Benadryl.

Around one o’clock, and again at three, Eddie gave up and stared at the ceiling.

When he was in the hospital, drugged and itchy from the bandages and the IV and his own sweat, he’d count the dots on the ceiling tiles, the beating of his heart monitor, the lights from the cars that passed on the street below, scanning across the wall and disappearing in a flash of yellow. And when that didn’t work, he’d play a game. 

Eddie always started off running his fingers along his jaw, at first, or his side, finding the shape of the edges of his body. Then he would move closer -- brush across the stubbled skin of his cheek, his pale chest, until he found the tape. He traced the smooth edges of his bandages, then the rough gauze dressing. 

He kept going -- drawing closer and closer to the wounds he couldn’t see, the old dried blood, the wet, soft edges of him, and _pressed_. A light touch at first, then more solid, then harder, until he could feel it, even through the haze of opiates and the strange timelessness of the hospital, just _there_ : the bright flare of pain that resolved to a pounding ache. It lingered, trapping his heartbeat within it, a dull throb searing in his chest and through his cheek.

He did it again that night. Lying there under the tangle of bedding, he’d found the edges of his memory and drawn closer. Brushed against the blurry muddle of his thirteenth year, and shoved his way through, into a sweaty, restless feeling he’d long forgotten, and the indescribable springtime way he’d felt looking at Richie. It’s a realization that leaves him feeling feverish and shaking and very much alive.

“Eddie, is it… are you having dreams?” Richie asks. His voice is very quiet, rasp over the transcontinental connection.

“Nothing like that,” Eddie says, and bites his lip. “I’m…”

“What is it? Are you okay?” Richie inhales sharply. “Are you in danger?”

“ _Richie_. I’m okay, I think -- I’m--” And like that, Eddie decides. “I’m leaving New York.”

“Okay. Okay. And you need to call me at one fucking thirty on Thursday morning to tell me that? Jesus Christ, Eds, I--”

“I need a place to stay,” Eddie says. “And I thought, California. Why the fuck not? And who do I know in California…”

“So you called me,” Richie says incredulously, mouth too close to the speaker, a little too loud for the middle of the night. “In the middle of the fucking night, to ask if you could come stay with me?”

“Yeah,” Eddie says, closing his eyes. “Yeah, you dick. I guess I did.”

“You know you don’t have to ask.”

Eddie laughs a little, tension easing from his throat, but the exhaustion doesn’t go away. He leans back against the couch. “Didn’t want to have to listen to you bitching about it when I show up on your doorstep.”

“You know I will anyway.” Richie says. His voice has gone soft and a little wobbly. It’s probably the connection.

“Yeah. I fucking know." Eddie smiles. He can't help it, this late.

“Welp.” Richie clears his throat with an awkward cough. “Well, Eds. I guess I’ll be seeing you, then.”

“Don’t call me Eds. You know I hate it,” Eddie says. Richie doesn’t say anything. The apartment is quiet, and the street below, and the only sound in the room is Eddie’s own breathing. He can hear Richie breathing too, from thousands of miles away. It takes him a while to summon up the courage to speak. “And, yeah. I guess you will be seeing me.”

“Good.” Richie sounds so sure it makes Eddie’s heart skip a beat. “Now get some fucking sleep. I’m gonna kick you out if you’re a grouchy asshole.”

“Fuck you, Richie. No you’re not.”

Richie’s laugh barely comes across the connection, a soft huff into the microphone, right into Eddie’s ear. “No, I’m not.”

“Well that’s a first,” Eddie says around the sudden lump in his throat, trying to keep his voice even, to disguise the hitch in his breathing. “Trashmouth, admitting he’s wrong.”

“Fuck you,” Richie says, but there’s nothing behind it, just easy affection that soothes Eddie and winds him up at the same time. “There’s a first time for everything, Eds.”

Eddie wants to argue. The world he lives in is one of finite possibilities and he can’t help himself; he can’t let go. But he closes his eyes and forces his jaw to relax, breathes in deep. Holds on to the memory of the dull ache in his arm, the hot pain in his chest, the sleepless tension in the hollows behind his eyes. They’re reminders: of his beating heart, his rushing blood, the swell and collapse of air moving in his lungs, vital and strong. Like Richie is.

“Everything?”

It takes Eddie so long to ask, and when he does, his voice is rough and raw-edged. He knows if he’d ever harbored thoughts of hiding this, of keeping it a secret locked inside him, well. It’s too late now.

“Eds… yeah. Yeah. Everything.” Richie sounds stunned but sure, a little breathless.

“Good,” Eddie says. “I-- Rich. I should probably.”

“Yeah, jesus. Get some fucking sleep.”

Eddie nods, even though Richie can’t see him. The sky won’t lighten for a couple hours yet. He’s got time.

“Yeah,” Eddie clears his throat. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Definitely. You just let me know. I’ll roll out the welcome mat. Bake a cake. Clean the toilet. Wash my fucking dishes. For once.”

“You’re disgusting,” Eddie says, but it sounds like something else. He can feel his eyelids getting heavy, a yawn trying to escape from deep in his chest, and lets his head rest against the couch cushion.

“That’s me.” Richie exhales hard. “What can I say, Eds. You bring it out in me.”

“Don’t call me that. You know I hate it.” Eddie doesn’t even bother trying to make it sound convincing. “Good night, Rich.”

“Night,” Richie says softly, but he doesn’t hang up right away.

He must be close to the microphone, Eddie thinks as he starts to drift off a little, lulled by the nighttime noise in the background: Richie shifting his weight, fabric rustling, his long sigh. It almost sounds like Richie’s right there beside him.

He could be, soon enough, and it’s that fragmented thought, a vision in a dream, that trails Eddie into sleep.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on twitter as [whateverrrrisay](https://twitter.com/whateverrrrisay) and on tumblr as [whateverrrrwhatever](https://whateverrrrwhatever.tumblr.com/).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


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